Ah, So Now Intel Says 2008 Is The Year For WiMax

from the don't-bet-on-it dept

Intel has been hyping up WiMax for ages, to the point that many people (including reporters) believed it existed when didn't. In fact, Intel even declared WiMax a proven success before it existed. Now that's marketing! While there's a decent chance that WiMax will eventually be successful, it's reached the point that we have a hard time believing anything Intel has to say about the technology. So, when they come out and say something like 2008 will be the year for WiMax consider us skeptical. The good news is that we're not the only ones. That Wired article is written by Bryan Gardiner who expresses his skepticism and quotes some WiMax skeptics and points to Intel's earlier overstated claims on the technology. Either way, the idea that 2008 will be the year for WiMax simply reminds me of the fact that some wireless company or analyst firm seems to have declared every year since 2003 the year for "3G wireless." Now that we're moving on to what some people consider "4G," it's only fitting that we have four or five years of people claiming that next year (no, really this time!) will be the year for WiMax.

wimax rocks

Listen

No one gets it Mike. I apologize for everyone. The problem is WiMax deployments, on a large scale are difficult and you have the asymmetry issues to deal with so power, capacity, etc. are all factors and it has to be made relevant and cost effective in the context of a modern infrastructure. This is not plug and play technology like your mother's Wifi access point...

NAC is the same. Everyone wants it, it sounds good on paper, and the political and practical issues always come back to bite you in the ass...

Microsoft ..

Re: Microsoft ..

And when they finally did, it wasn't the end all that everyone expected, just an old turd, chromed and painted pretty, just like XP. How you like them apples? Just fine thank you and all the other *nix flavors that it's built on.

Multiple layers of support

When you quote Intel as saying "2008 is the year of Wi-Max," that could mean a lot of different things. I, for one, didn't assume that would mean "ubiquitous access anywhere, everywhere, reliably, at cheap prices, with tons of compatible devices." I DO think there will be significant progress in device and service availability for many people in 2008 and that Wi-Max will take off far faster than Wi-Fi did.

Mike Masnick gives us the impression Wi-Max is dependent on Intel, when that's far from the truth. While Intel appears to be fully behind the technology (integrating Wi-Max into Centrino and dumping 3G), there are MULTIPLE chip makers committed to producing Wi-Max chips and systems (about 25 companies...and manufacturing at 1/6 the cost of 3G chips). There are also several carriers across the globe that have committed capital to large scale deployments of WiMax service. In the U.S., Sprint is committed to covering 100M POPs (population) by the end of 2008 (Ok, give them an extra six months, they begin the rollout first quarter 2008) Wi-Max devices from a variety of manufacturers are already ramping up.

2008 IS the year for Wi-Max - not because of Intel, but because of strong support in multiple layers of the Wi-Max "ecosystem."

Come on, Mike..do a little reading on your competitor's websites and get on the bandwagon!